Nobody minded. The best atmosphere so far in these Olympic Winter Games surrounded a cross country skiing event, the 4x10-kilometer relay. It helped that the host country is very good in this stuff and even more so that the relay teams from Italy and Norway have created the single greatest Olympic rivalry in any sport lately.
Much like the Greeks in 2004, when the Italians care enough about something, they do show up at the Olympics. So they packed the grandstand Sunday morning and lined the course above the stadium in a mountain venue a couple of hours from Turin, while others without tickets peeked through the fence, allowing them only an obscured view of the scoreboard and video screen.
At all points along the course, they were loud. They waved green, white and orange flags, they yellled, "EE-tal-YA" and they clanged cowbells. And that was before the victory celebration.
"I couldn't tell if it was lactate coming out of my ears or the bell-ringing at the top, but I couldn't hear a thing," said U.S.
skier Kris Freeman, who stayed with the pack for most of the first leg.
It got louder and louder. Italy seized control on the third leg and cruised to a 15-second victory. In the context of this event's history, that margin was about like four touchdowns in football, and the remarkable part was that Norway was not even in the picture.
"It's pretty amazing; it always comes down to those two teams," said U.S. skier Lars Flora, who correctly predicted at the halfway point Sunday that Norway would falter this time and someone else [Gemany and Sweden] would emerge. That was a major switch.
For the previous four Olympics, Norway and Italy had consistently staged the best battles of all. Norway won three gold medals, with Italy second each time - and narrowly so in most cases. Italy's victory came on Norwegian snow in 1994, so this was Norway's chance to return the favor.
Didn't happen. The usual competition was shaping up until the third leg, when Norway's Frode Estil faded fast. Afterward, he appeared to have a testy exchange with Norwegian reporters, taking a few steps and answering questions over his shoulder. "No shape, no condition; nothing works for me," he was quoted.
It worked for Italy. "These last four years were quite hard," said anchor skier Cristian Zorzi, remembering the loss at Soldier Hollow.
Pietro Piller Cottrell was the No. 3 skier responsible for the big lead that allowed Zorzi to coast home after leading by more than 30 seconds with about a kilometer to go. Afterward, the foursome hugged and their countrymen sang and shouted.
Even for the Americans, who finished a disappointing 12th [they and everybody else did beat the Austrians, whose rooms were raided in the early morning by anti-doping officials], the race atmosphere was inspiring. "It's too bad we couldn't have put on a little better show, but it was a lot of fun," said Andrew Johnson of Park City.
"It's a great venue." The Norwegians, based in a country that lives for this sport, obviously disagree. With flu having swept through the women's team, Norway has not collected a cross country medal in these Games. "It's all my fault," Estil said Sunday, and thousands of Italian fans were eager to thank him. kkragthorpe@sltrib.com
